How agency owners can reclaim their life with Scott Beebe

Episode 126:

I don’t believe in life/work balance. When I was a kid, my “work dad” would come home from the bank in his three-piece suit and he’d go upstairs and my “home dad” would come downstairs in jeans, looking for his martini and the download of our day while my mom cooked dinner.

Sounds very Leave it to Beaver, doesn’t it? It really was. My dad didn’t have a computer or a cell phone. I can remember the only time the office called him at home – the bank building was on fire. But other than that – there was complete separation of work and home life.

We do not have that luxury. At best, we can strive for life/work blend. Our personal lives will seep into the work day and our work will seep into our personal time. But for many agency owners, what that translates to is that you are always on and always working.

That’s not only unhealthy for you but it’s unhealthy for your business. You simply can’t grow your agency if you have to do everything that’s mission critical.

That’s the conversation I wanted to have with Scott Beebe who is a strategist, teacher, and business coach for My Business On Purpose. He is also the host of the Business on Purpose podcast.

Scott is all about about liberating small business owners from the chaos of working in their business and helping them get their lives back by being really clear about what their business is about, what they want to get out of the business, where they have unique opportunities to contribute to the business, and where they need to get out of the way.

His background includes direct and B2B sales, designing and implementing organizational strategy, training and development, marketing and fundraising, along with teaching and speaking.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

The two biggest non-negotiables for agencies today

The value in building out a detailed company vision and reinforcing it regularly in team meetings

Understanding what clients you should and should not work with based on your company vision

Your mission statement: a portable, 15-word version of your vision story

Why you need to have 3-5 core values that are unique to you (hint: not table stakes like respect, responsibility, excellence, etc.)

Scott’s spreadsheet for figuring out what tasks you can keep as the agency owner and which ones you should delegate

How to document processes so everyone is on the same page and can wear multiple hats

Using team meetings to stay on top of the week’s work and why you should end every team meeting with training

How to delegate to people who may not be your direct reports without throwing your agency into chaos and confusion

The four steps to achieving business freedom

Reinvesting your time into things that matter once you’ve delegated tasks away and have significant free time

For almost 30 years, Drew McLellan has been in the advertising industry. He started his career at Y&R, worked in boutique-sized agencies and then started his own (which he still owns and run) agency in 1995. Additionally, Drew owns and leads Agency Management Institute, which advises hundred of small to mid-sized agencies on how to grow their agency and its profitability through agency owner peer groups, consulting, coaching, workshops and more.